Tagged punx

Interview with Bob Suren, author of Weird Music That Goes On Forever

March 11, 2024

Behind the scenes of Bob’s quest to bring two outsider genres together at last

Bob Suren’s new book, Weird Music That Goes On Forever: A Punk’s Guide to Loving Jazz is out now, with art by Brian Walsby and forewords from Lucky Lehrer and Paul Mahern. We chatted with Bob about the writing and publication of the book and the punk-to-jazz pipeline.

Microcosm Publishing: What inspired you to write your book?

Bob Suren: An unsatisfactory experience at a jazz club. When I first got into punk rock as a teenager, some more seasoned punks taught me about how punk rock works. They loaned me records and zines and made mix tapes and invited me to shows. The few jazz clubs I have been to have not been particularly welcoming. After a visit to some snobby club, I thought, jazz isn’t supposed to be like that. Really, nothing should be like that. But jazz was the original outsider music. Granted, I wasn’t kicking around when it was but it sure seems dusty and aloof now. I belong to several jazz groups online, to gather knowledge and read opinions, and there’s very little sense of humor in the groups. There is a lot of what the kids call “gatekeeping” and a lot of jazz experts flexing their credentials. Of course, there’s quite a bit of that now in punk, too, and I plead a little guilty. Anyhow, after being given the third-class treatment at a jazz club, I got the idea to write a book that compares jazz to punk and I started writing it the minute I got home. I sent Microcosm the first thousand words or so that very night.

MCP: What was it like to publish with Microcosm?

BS: This is my second book with Microcosm. I hear that for your seventh they give you a monogrammed smoking jacket. The first book I edited in person with Joe, side by side at his desk in Portland over five or six days. It was very easy and smooth and the finished product was not much different than the rough draft. For this book, I worked remotely by email with Olivia and there were a lot more things to debate and fix in the edit. I think we did three front to back edits over a period of maybe three months. I was starting to get sick of looking at the thing but Olivia made some good suggestions and she caught a few fact errors in her cross-research which made for a better book. And a much longer book. I used to be skeptical of the editing process but I now realize that a second set of eyes is a big help

MCP: What was the submission/query process like for you?

BS: Since I already had a relationship with Microcosm, it was very easy and informal. I sent Joe a three sentence pitch and the first thousand or so words as soon as I wrote them. Maybe like 10 minutes after I wrote them. Joe’s original response was that it might make a good zine. He told me to keep it around 36 pages. I didn’t think I could do the subject any justice at 36 pages so I said, “I’m just going to write it the way it needs to be and send it when I feel like it’s finished,” which is a very fucking jazz approach to writing. At one point, I thought it was going to top out short, at around 100 pages. But I keep finding great info. I couldn’t believe it when the final page count was 256.

MCP: What else have you written?

BS: In 2015 Microcosm published Crate Digger: An Obsession with Punk Records, my memoir of 30 years in punk rock as a fan, a collector, a band member, a record label, a store, a distro, a prolific t-shirt bootlegger, basset hound owner, and more.

MCP: What are you currently reading?

BS: I read a lot of nonfiction. I like pop science books like Mary Roach and Oliver Sacks. I love memoirs. Some of the best memoirs I have read were by Meat Loaf, Paul Stanley, Geezer Butler, John Stamos, Rob Lowe, Chrissie Hynde, Belinda Carslie, Tina Fey, Molly Shannon, and a not famous guy from Texas named David Crabb wrote wrote something very funny called Bad Kid. I have given two copies of Bad Kid as gifts. Check it out. I have been dipping into non-fiction, too. I think America’s best non-fiction writer is a guy from Portland named Willy Vlautin. I have read every Willy Vlautin book and I have written him fan mail, just like the fan mail I used to send Kevin Seconds. Except I didn’t ask Willy Vlautin for free stickers.

MCP: What’s the best book you read in the last year?

BS: Willy Vlautin’s latest book, The Night Always Comes. Also a novel called The Lemon, written by three people under the pseudonym S.E. Boyd.

MCP: What’s next for you?

BS: Maybe I will get another idea for a book and maybe I won’t. I have no idea. Once I get the inspiration, I work fast. Crate Digger was written over maybe six weeks. Weird Music took me maybe ten weeks to write. I just need a spark.

Check out Weird Music That Goes On Forever—not many books out there get a handwritten blurb from King Buzzo.

Bob Suren spent decades as a professional punk rocker, playing in bands, releasing records, running a store and a distribution company, writing for zines, shooting photos, and booking shows. Now he’s kind of into jazz. Read another interview with Bob on our blog.

What’s a Book Good For Anyway? Our Spring Season on Kickstarter

December 19, 2016 — by Elly Blue

It’s been a while (okay, over a week now) since our last Kickstarter project ended… and we’ve just launched another this morning, for Microcosm’s Spring season.

This project is a little different. Instead of promoting just one book, we’ve decided to give you six at once—six very different books that span our interests and eras.

The norm in publishing is to put out multiple books each season (of which, in this industry, there are three–Spring and Fall are the main ones, and then there’s a small Winter season right after the xmas holidaze). Usually the publisher picks one book from each season and puts all their resources behind it, gambling on making it a blockbuster. We’ve never done this, mostly because we haven’t had the money to gamble on promoting books in the traditional ways. Instead, we spread our best efforts equally around all the books and hope they all win.

So this project represents our (cough) brand, our business model, and a strong sampling of the topics, styles, interests, authors, and books that we care about deeply.

Sandor Ellix Katz’z Basic Fermentation is the blockbuster here… it’s a substantial new edition of the cute little zine-turned-book, Wild Fermentation, that has been winning hearts for years. We also have new editions of Cristy C. Road’s underground classic Indestructible and Dan Méndez Moore’s gripping comics journalism account of Six Days in Cincinnati. we’re putting a spine on Raleigh Briggs’s friendly, hand-written Fix Your Clothes, and we finally gave Kelli Refer’s Pedal, Stretch, Breathe an ISBN. And we have a brand-new book in the mix, too: The Prodigal Rogerson represents J. Hunter Bennett’s meticulous and spirited research into the mysterious disappearance (and reappearance) of the Circle Jerk’s original bassist and songwriter.

Like any good books, these ones are good for entertainment… and so much more. Fixing your clothes, your gut health with fermented food, your wounded sense of community and political rightness… books can provide all that and more, and that’s what gets us up in the morning and keeps us going day after day.

Read more about them over at Kickstarter, where you’ll also have a chance to get to live chat with some of the authors and the people who make Microcosm go!

Check it out, and consider backing it to get some good books to last you through winter.

Rockstars Eating: An Interview with Automne Zingg

October 25, 2016 — by Elly Blue

Automne Zingg

Ever since Automne Zingg sent us her zine called “Comfort Eating with Nick Cave,” the world has seemed like a friendlier, funnier place. So we schemed to do more work with her, culminating with a book of the same name that came out last month, along with its companion, Defensive Eating with Morrissey. And now you too can delight in some of her work. But these books are just the thin end of the wedge. We talked with Automne about her art (some of which involves rock stars eating, and some of which doesn’t). Read, watch, and listen on!

Lacey Spacecake

You have a great intro in each book about its origin story. What’s the short version of the story of how these two works went from idea to zines to books.
The short version is basically me dealing with poverty and heartbreak through art. I couldn’t afford to eat and drawing these pictures of my idols comfort eating amused me and served as an almost type of therapy. Turning them into zines to sell made it so I could afford the luxuries of eating. Having those zines turn into cookbooks was the thanks of you dearies at Microcosm as well as Joshua Ploeg. It’s one of the few artistic projects of mine that went somewhere and actually had a happy ending. Usually my creations die in obscurity or my ideas go unnoticed. This has been a great change of pace.

Rockstars Eating by Automne Zingg

The response to these books has been tremendous! Have you had any particularly funny, touching, hostile, or weird encounters as a result of the books (or zines)?
Hahha. For the most part, I have been really floored by the support. There have been a few Morrissey fans not so amused by it but I expected as much. Honestly, I was really worried about the timing of the Nick Cave one since these were made before he lost his son and I didn’t want anybody to get the wrong idea. Fortunately most people get that this all came from a humorous place of love.

Old Manzig by Automne Zingg

You do a lot of music and video art. What are your other projects? What are you working on right now that you’re most excited about?

Lacey Spacecake Video Stills

Right now I have a one woman band called Lacey Spacecake where I write and record all the songs, play the instruments, sing, and make the videos.

I’m also in a band called Bat Fancy. Unfortunately none of the members live in the same state so we are temporarily on a hiatus but here is a spooooooky Halloween video I made for us.

I’m also doing the art for my friend’s documentary about The Cure’s fans. She’s been working on the thing for 16 years.

Other than that, I do a lot of comedy videos and have a day in music segment (From Day To Zingg) every Tuesday for my buddy Kurt’s WFMU show. It’s never scripted and I usually say a lot of nonsense ranging from accusing Meatloaf of the assassination of JFK to telling people that if you play Chicago’s “If You Leave Me Now” backwards, it’s actually Peter Cetera’s recipe for grits.

But you can find most of my art, musings, videos, words, and projects on my website.

What’s next? We hope you’ll draw more rock icons eating…
Definitely more zines and definitely more rockstars consuming things. Currently I’m working on an “Adult Activity Book” with things like “YO MAMMA JOKES WITH JARVIS COCKER” and “HANGOVER CURES WITH THE CURE.” I’m also doing an illustrated guide to these bizarre weather reports I used to write in LA. What else? I’m trying to get a public access show in Queens where I play the part of a sad bear that asks artists and musicians really existential questions. It’s called “I CAN’T BEAR THIS.” I’m still looking for the perfect bear costume. There are worse problems to have.

Violator

(P.S. You can also watch an election video Automne made for Kickstarter right here! You too may find yourself supporting David Boowie and the Ghost Formerly Known as Prince on the 2016 ballot.)

Ultimate Bernie by Automne Zingg

Merry Krampus by Automne Zingg

Punk Rock Entrepreneur: An interview with Caroline Moore

September 22, 2016 — by Elly Blue

Caroline Moore came to us with a book that really hit home: Punk Rock Entrepreneur: Running a Business Without Losing Your Values. We’re thrilled with how the book turned out. Moore’s examples are drawn from her own life, other scrappy entrepreneurs including bands like Green Day. This is like the anti-startup guide. Instead of coming up with an idea and looking for funding, this book is about turning your craft and art—what you would do no matter what—into a viable business without the benefit of having much (or any) money.

You can find out more about Moore’s design, illustration, and photography on her website, and check out her sweet goods (some of them Punk Rock Entrepreneur-related) in her Etsy shop. Oh yeah, and we still have a bunch of signed and doodled copies of her book. Order soon and snag one of them!

1. What’s the origin story of Punk Rock Entrepreneur? Where’d the idea come from? How did you end up with Microcosm?
Depending on how far back you want to go, the origin story is an interview I did with a group that focuses on entrepreneurship for teens. They asked what made me want to start a business, and I didn’t have a great answer for them, so I spent some time thinking about it. The truth is, when I started out, I didn’t even really think of it as starting a business, in an official way. I was used to my punk friends touring, starting zines, making and selling art, and that’s what I did—starting my photography business was very unceremonious.

After I’d put some serious time and thought into it, I found that a lot of what I knew about starting and running a business was from that DIY scene. I had been volunteering for a few years with Weapons of Mass Creation Fest, and it seemed like the kind of thing that would go over really well with their crowd. So I pitched it to Jeff Finley and Joseph Hughes (Jeff founded the Fest, and Joseph was handling the speaker lineup that year), and they let me have a spot on their stage. So the idea got upgraded to a 30 minute… well, it was supposed to be 30 minutes, but closer to a 40 minute conference talk. One of my favorite comments that someone tweeted about that was something like “punk enough to get kicked off stage, professional enough not to knock down the podium on her way out.”

My process for writing conference talks is that I basically write an essay, exactly what I want to say, and then practice that and make an outline to actually use as a reference on stage. Which meant that I had everything all typed up, so I posted it to my blog after I got home for anyone that had missed the talk. I was still doing contract work for a design agency a few days a week then, and my boss there said “you should turn this into a book.” I knew I had a ton of material that I had to cut for time, so I started putting together proposals to send out to publishers. I had heard of Microcosm because I’d done some interior illustrations for Bobby Joe Ebola’s book, which they published. After meeting with Joe and Elly at a Dinner and Bikes event in Pittsburgh, and looking over the catalog, the book seemed like a really good fit both for the types of books that Microcosm puts out, and the way that they do business.

2. This is your first book (congrats!). What has surprised you about writing and publishing a book? Any advice for other first-time authors now that you’ve been around this block once?
Thanks! One of the first things that surprised me was the sheer volume of words that I needed to write. It seems like you have so much to say, but then you type everything up and it’s six pages. I had gotten used to writing for blogs, for twitter, for conferences, for things that are meant to be short form. You have to be really concise and get to your point. Which is still important in longer form books, no one wants to read you droning on belaboring a point, but you do have a lot more room to really flesh out a concept. I also say something in the book, “you can’t edit a blank page, but you can edit a bad one.” Staring at a blank sheet messes with you, so just start putting words down. Even if they’re terrible, stupid words, just start writing for the sake of having something that you can work with. We learned to write in chunks when I was in college, and that’s still how I do it. The introductions are the last thing that I write, I start in the middle.

3. In Punk Rock Entrepreneur you propose the counter-intuitive idea that not having a lot of money or resources can actually be the best thing for someone starting a business. Can you elaborate a little bit on this?
It’s certainly not the easiest way. Having a huge pile of money to throw at a project would make things much easier. But not having a ton of cash up front does make you think creatively about how to get your business off of the ground, and it makes you look at the money and resources you do have VERY critically. In particular, you’re very thoughtful about what you’re getting for spending that cash. A band with a trust fund might be able to get an RV to tour in, spend a lot of cash on hotel rooms, food, top of the line gear, clothes, you name it. But that stuff might not be helping them bring in any more money (or fans). They have a lot of money going out, but may not have any more money coming in than the band that’s touring in their car and sleeping on floors. Those folks are keeping their overhead low, so they get to keep the money they bring in.

4. What are you listening to or reading right now that inspires you?
I’m actually giving a talk in Louisville in October (at MidwestUX) about how routine input leads to routine output. I’m really big on interdisciplinary education, because I think the bigger your pool of experiences, the more connections you can potentially make to create interesting work. I’m actually working on condensing that entire chapter (“We Live Our Lives Another Way”) down to a 10 minute lightning talk. I don’t have a ton of dedicated reading time right now (I have a 15-month-old), so I’m reading a lot of psychology articles. Why people behave the way they do is really interesting to me from both a human perspective and a business one. I just discovered the joy of Instapaper to keep track of all the things I want to read.

As far as music, I’m a little all over the place. My husband and I just discovered Smoke or Fire’s The Speakeasy, which is great because they stopped being a band in 2004, which is a recurring theme when we find albums that we both like. I’ve had that in the car on loop lately. I just picked up Signals Midwest’s new one, At This Age. We did a joint book launch/record release show, and I don’t have enough nice words to say about those guys or the music they make. And the last show that we went to was Sikth, which is sometimes hard for me to listen to, because they’re super erratic. But they’re doing some really cool things that I don’t hear much elsewhere, so I find it really interesting even though sometimes it makes me agitated.

5. What’s next for you, in business, art, and life?
This is always a super busy time of year for me, for some reason October is always booked solid. We’re taking our kid on his first plane ride, to go to his dad’s work conference. We’ve already done a work conference each this year, and we both have another one coming up where we’ll be separated. So for this one, we’re going as a family to spend some time together, plus also the hotel is right next to Legoland. I have a few events coming up, Whiskey & Words in Pittsburgh, then Midwest UX in Louisville. I’ve got a wedding to shoot, and I’m setting up mini portrait sessions to benefit Children’s Hospital’s Free Care Fund. Definitely more speaking engagements coming up, and some more events where I can set up and talk to folks about the book.

Things tend to slow down in the winter, and I can get into my “someday” list. Throughout the year I’ll have ideas for art that I want to make, and it just goes into the giant someday pile for whatever time I carve out for personal projects. Sometimes I don’t write up the best description, though, and months later I don’t understand my own notes (like that episode of 30 Rock where Kenneth has a notebook that just says “bird internet.”) I’m also rebranding the photography site over the winter, Ryan Troy Ford agreed to work on a new logo for me, and I’m pretty excited to update that. It feels weird to hire someone to design anything for me, since my undergraduate degree is in design, and I’ve spent a lot of years working as a designer. But designing for yourself is so much harder than for clients, and fighting the urge to just tweak it for all eternity is difficult. Getting someone a little more removed from it is definitely going to be good for the project.

For the business, this is the first time I’ve very intentionally done it part time. Even when I had a full time job, I was still really treating the business as a full time endeavor (which was not great for my health, but that’s a whole other interview.) Being our son’s primary caregiver, I can’t also work full time. We decided I was going to stay home with him, instead of doing day care, so my hours are limited. It’s a good balance for us right now, and I’m happy with the direction it’s taking. But the rebrand is part of a bigger theme of refocusing what I’m putting out there, so that I’m really getting the right clients to work with during those limited hours. Another thing that comes up in the book is how important it is to be attentive to your goals, and to revisit those goals to see if that’s still what you want. I can’t just look at someone else’s business to see what they’re doing, I have to really consider what I want out of my own business, and whether my actions are getting me closer to that.

Book Review: Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever

September 11, 2016 — by Elly Blue

We ask all of our interns to choose a book and review it for our blog. Usually, when tasked with this assignment, they head downstairs to the warehouse and deliberate for a half hour. Sometimes it takes them a few days to choose. Not Dylan. He immediately knew. Here’s his review, and an appropriately tough selfie with the book:

Tom Neely’s Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever is hilarious. The idea of taking two icons from the hardcore punk scene (which, at its height in the mid-80s, was taken over by macho assholes who made the scene about faux masculinity) and creating a fictional gay romance between them is just genius.

The thing I appreciated most about the book, however, is its constant references and jokes about not just The Misfits and Black Flag but about heavy metal and punk music in general. This is also, unfortunately, what limits the audience of the book, since your average reader probably doesn’t know who the hell King Diamond or Ian MacKaye are, but for people who do understand these references, they make reading this book all the more enjoyable.

I myself lost it when aliens brought zombies to life and announced that their prime directive was to “exterminate the whole fucking place,” as well as every time I noticed all the random 138s scattered about.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone with reasonable knowledge about punk and metal music and culture.
—Dylan Siegler

Now Kickstarting: Defensive Eating with Morrissey & Comfort Eating with Nick Cave

June 24, 2016 — by Elly Blue

Update: Thanks to 560 Kickstarter backers, these books have been funded! If you missed the project, that’s okay: You can order books directly from us. Here are our permanent pages for Comfort Eating with Nick Cave: Vegan Recipes to Get Deep Inside of You and Defensive Eating with Morrissey: Vegan Recipes from the One You Left Behind

We’re extra excited about the Kickstarter project we’re running until July 14:

These books started out as zines by Automne Zingg (if you like her project video, you’ll love her video performances as Lacey Spacecake, featuring her illustrations of sad Nick Cave and bummed Morrissey using food to make themselves feel better. We asked vegan chef and queercore chanteur Joshua Ploeg to pen recipes to go with each illustration in the book. He put the back catalogs of first Nick Cave and then Morrissey on his kitchen radio and whipped up some lyrically inspired and laugh-til-you-cry delights.

The result of this magic combo? Two crass, classy, and delightful hardcover books that’ll help get you through the hardest and hungriest times of your life. They come out in October; back the Kickstarter and you’ll get them earlier. Back for a little more and you’ll get a pile of other books of music, comix, and/or vegan food — or a bit more than that, and Automne will write you a song or draw a custom portrait of YOU eating your favorite food. Or perhaps Joshua will come to your town and cook you a meal!

Indie Bookstore Love: Boneshaker Books in Minneapolis!

April 04, 2016 — by Elly Blue

Our indie bookstore crush for the month of April is on Minneapolis’s one-and-only all-volunteer bookstore collective, Boneshaker Books. Walking into Boneshaker is an amazing experience—a friendly person greets you, and you’re surrounded by a selection of books, each one of which was obviously chosen because someone passionately wants you to read it, not because of sales metrics. Even the way the sections are selected is thoughtful and eye-opening. For instance, most bookstores have a separate sections for African American and Native American histories… in Boneshaker, those are both just plain American History, and make up the bulk of that section. Chances are a volunteer worker will make you feel right at home, leaving you alone to browse if that’s what you prefer or engaging in a spirited discussion of the ethics and techniques of writing fiction, if that’s up your alley.

The collective is putting up a Microcosm books display this month to celebrate our shared history and values (pics coming once that happens!), and they also took the time to answer a few questions for us.

1. What is the history of Boneshaker Books?
After longtime Minneapolis radical bookstore Arise! closed in 2010, a group of former volunteers decided that there was still a need for an all-volunteer community bookstore—and, that if done thoughtfully, it could be successful and self-sustaining. Our original crew had an extremely diverse skill set that included a professional fundraiser, a carpenter, an artisanal iron worker, and a web developer, and we leveraged those skills as much as possible.

Along with the usual Kickstarter and benefit events, we came up with a unique fundraising plan: every donor of $250 or more could pick a book title that we would stock forever. So not only did we build a strong donor base, but they literally built the foundation (or skeleton) of our collection. We like to say that every book in the store is there because someone—donor or volunteer—loves it.

We intended to open in the old Arise! Bookstore building, but it fell through for a few reasons, mostly due to money. After contacting some neighborhood groups, we found an odd space in the back of a quirky building in the Seward neighborhood, near our friends at the Seward Cafe. It turned out to be a perfectly magical fit. We were also able to share the space with our friends at the Women’s Prison Book Project who distribute books to women and transgender persons in prisons.

After a year of writing business plans, fundraising, building beautiful custom bookshelves, and making dreamy book lists, we opened in January of 2011. Over the last five years, we’ve sold thousands of books, hosted hundreds of events, meetings and book clubs, and thrived with the support of countless volunteers and patrons. It’s been a wild ride, and we look forward to the adventures the next five bring.

2. A boneshaker is a Victorian-era bicycle; we too love the combination of books and bicycles. How did you choose the name and what do bikes + books mean to you?
So one of the ideas that we included in our vision of Boneshaker Books from our earliest collective meetings was to offer a free bike delivery service for special orders. Many of our founding collective members rode their bikes for transportation already, and it just seemed like a natural addition to our store. So as we discussed that intersection of interests, we gravitated towards a bike/book name.

And as we thought more about that combination, we thought about the ideological similarities between riding bikes and reading books. Today, neither of those things is seen as essential to enjoying your life—but anyone who rides a bike or reads a book will tell you how empowering those activities are! How they are essential to so many of us!

Riding a boneshaker bike is also a really jarring experience, which we think describes our inventory pretty well. We carry books that rattle your core, and the name Boneshaker Books fits that perfectly.

3. What’s your favorite (or the most popular) Microcosm book in your store? How about any book at all?
So this might be a little biased, but our favorite Microcosm book is Fire and Ice by Joshua Ploeg. In 2012 we were hosting a Valentine’s Day fund raising dinner—and maybe not surprisingly, we don’t have a ton of experience catering gigantic dinners. But it turned out that Joshua was going to be in Minneapolis that night, so we reached out and asked for his help.

And he pulled through in such a huge way! He helped us make the most incredible vegan dinner, with, like, Husker Du themed foods! And then one of his fans showed up, this awesome vegan chef from Minneapolis, and she cooked a ton of delicious food with us, too. It was just this totally overwhelming experience, and it still stands as our most successful fund raiser ever, four years later.

Fire and Ice happens to be our best selling Microcosm title too—which is nice.

4. You’ve been around through some major ups and downs in the book business. Has being a volunteer-run collective helped get you through that or given you a different perspective than a for-profit bookstore might have? What do you hope happens next?
At any given time we have over 40 active volunteers, and sometimes that number goes up to 60. That means every day there are between 40 and 60 people who are contributing ideas, recommending books, organizing events, and making Boneshaker Books a better community book store.

So that’s probably the biggest perspective-shift between Boneshaker and a for-profit bookstore. We have more ideas coming in, we have a more diverse set of stake holders, and—as volunteers—we’re less dictated by making stacks of cash. We need to pay rent every month, but other than that, we don’t have nearly as many expenses as a traditional bookstore—and that lets us take risks with our inventory that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.

Our next big hopes are to expand our bicycle delivery service to include a dedicated bike trailer stocked for events, and we’re dipping our feet into online sales. Maybe.

Visit Boneshaker Books every day from 11 to 8 at 2002 23rd Ave S in the Seward neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota! And thank you for supporting independent bookstores!

Unearthing the East Bay’s Hidden Rock History: An interview with Cory M. Linstrum

March 04, 2016 — by Elly Blue

cory m lindstrum photo by dale stewart We’re stoked to announce the official publication of
the second volume in our Scene History series, Cory M. Linstrum’s The Rock & Roll of San Francisco’s East Bay, 1950-1980. Before the Lookout Records revolution put the Bay Area on the map for current generations, the East Bay was home to a thriving, influential, and diverse rock and punk scene. This little zine packs a whole lot of fascinating history for anyone curious about the roots of the music they’ve always loved, or about SF area history generally. It comes out March 15th, and Cory answered some questions for us over email.

1. Why did you write the Rock & Roll of SF’s East Bay scene history?

It was originally inspired by Joel Selvin’s book, San Francisco: The Musical History Tour. For anyone that hasn’t seen this, it’s like a tourist guidebook of locations specific to Bay Area rock ‘n’ roll: i.e. the sites of now-shuttered infamous nightclubs, historically significant recording studios, sites of a drug busts involving famous musicians, etc. Despite Selvin’s target audience being baby-boomers, it goes much deeper than your average Dead/Airplane/Quicksilver trivia. It’s not only San Francisco locations, either. It includes spots here in the East Bay: the house Metallica lived in before becoming world-famous, CCR’s “Cosmo’s Factory” rehearsal space, the vacant lot (now baseball field) that had a house Jimi Hendrix once lived in as a boy.

It’s a fun book that I always thought would be rad if someone did an all-punk rock version of, in a sloppy fanzine format. I considered it myself, but, instead of the subject of significant locations, I settled on writing about my favorite local bands of multiple genres, operating in multiple decades, and the local record labels that released their music.

cory m linstrum photo by forest love The Rock & Roll of SF’s East Bay was actually written in entirety before I learned of Microcosm’s scene history series. It began as a series of essays, one for each decade: 50s/60s/70s, that I intended to self-publish one segment at a time, in issues of the fanzine I edit, Savage Damage Digest. However, I ran out of space before I could even fit in the first installment. Then I got hip to Microcosm’s open call for submissions, which was exactly what I needed!

2. What’s the most amazing/compelling/strange thing you learned while researching and writing it? What’s your favorite band or album from that era?

One of the coolest things was learning the street addresses and approximate locations of some of these extinct recording studios and nightclubs. In hadn’t realized their proximity and closeness to places I casually pass by in my everyday routine. It’s pretty neat going down Alcatraz Avenue, along the Berkeley/Oakland border, knowing that such and such record was recorded in a specific building. Or passing through the intersection of Milvia Street and San Pablo Avenue, visualizing that our Good Vibrations location was once the original Longbranch Saloon! Of course this is expected in places like Los Angeles or New York City, cities known as entertainment hubs, but it’s pretty cool for little ol’ Berkeley.

Since the advance and mail order copies of my Rock & Roll of SF’s East Bay have been circulating I’ve had some pleasant surprises: an invitation extended to me by a well-respected music historian and producer, to come by and peruse his archives and hear unreleased material by some of the bands I’ve written about. I was also thrilled to learn various members of the Jars, a Berkeley new-wave/punk group written about in the chapter on the 70s, had each been given copies to read—and enjoyed it. The band’s original vocalist, J.D. Buhl (who isn’t actually on either of the Jars records), contacted me. He made me aware of an entire alternate pre-history of this band. Now I’m privy to information I found nothing on during my research. It was a great surprise. We’ve since sat down together for an interview and I’ve heard the bands earliest, unreleased demos—which sound like an amazing merger of the Archies and the New York Dolls!

Besides these punky-poppy, practically unheard, early Jars recordings, I’d have to say my favorite Berkeley punk record is “Back To Bataan”, the 1979 single by the Maids. It’s probably the gnarliest sounding record to come out of the East Bay’s original punk wave of the late seventies. Anyone listening to the Killed By Death bootleg record series knows this one. Curiously, as the Maids only made two live appearances during its brief lifetime, most of the local musicians active on this late-seventies circuit don’t remember them.

3. Tell us more about you! What do you write / do / play / think about most?

It’s always been about music, music, music. I listen to it non-stop, write about it, play it live, talk about it and dream about it—always have. I was the kid in 7th grade with a Hit Parader, Creem or Circus Magazine behind his history book. The first underground fanzine I discovered, back in ’83-’84, was Metal Rendezvous. Soon after that I discovered punk rock and a whole new world of fanzines opened up for me. I did various fanzines of my own in high school, then none for many years—I just read ‘em and took mental notes.

I started writing and publishing again in 2010 with Savage Damage Digest. Its release schedule is inconsistent. With my “whenever-I-feel-like-it” attitude, I’m only four issues deep. Still, I keep busy. I just came off a ripping project that I’m really proud of: The Subtractions, a band from California’s Central Valley that existed ‘79/’80. I tracked them down and began interviewing its members for a story with Savage Damage Digest. In the process I discovered a set of tapes the band had recorded in 1980. I got ahold of them, listened to them, was blown away, restored them, transferred them, found a record deal and had an overall great time curating them for release with HoZac Records’ Archival Series (needless to say the band was thrilled and has since done a successful reunion show).

Of course I’m also an avid reader and fan of film, as well as into skateboarding and electric guitars. My wife and I love to travel. We never hesitate to drag our kids onto an airplane or load them into the back seat of our car. I’ve also done bands off and on for the last 25 or so years. I’m currently doing one, but wouldn’t hesitate to bail out when the dive bars and personality clashes become an agonizing grind (call me non-dedicated).

cory m linstrum photo by miles yost 4. What’s your next project that you’re most excited about?

At the moment I’ve got a story coming out in Ugly Things #41. It’s a short piece on 6IX, a mostly unknown band that released one Sly Stone-produced single in 1970. Following that is an interview with Boston punk band Unnatural Axe for the next issue of Human Being Lawnmower. I’m hoping to see both of these on the printed page very, very soon. Currently I’m wrapping an interview with (the previously mentioned) J.D. Buhl. He’s done a handful of cool releases, but his 1981 single, “Do Ya Blame Me,” is an awesome side of local poppy-new wave-punk. Sitting down and interviewing him was great fun and he opened a lot of doors for me regarding various local bands I’d only heard of, as they’d never released anything. This gave me some great reference points on these groups. My long term goal is to keep interviewing local musicians and writing about Bay Area punk rock.

Check out our Scene History series zines + call for submissions here, and Cory’s new zine here!

Breathe New Life Into This: Meal Deal With the Devil

June 08, 2015 — by Elly

Our intern Coco is funny and perceptive and has a hilarious Twitter account. So we plopped a stack of books in front of her that, for one reason or another, we have way too many of in our warehouse, and asked her to write short descriptions of who each book is for, based only on looking at the front and back cover. She obliged, and we’ll be featuring her analyses one by one in hopes of making new matches between books and readers.

Here’s our first swing, at the greatest little golden book you never had as a kid:

Book: Meal Deal With the Devil by Dan Abbott, Corbett Redford, and Jason Chandler

What it is: A sing-along songbook for adults by cult music heroes Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children MacNuggits

Problem: The book’s price was too high. We originally set it at $19.95 because of its high production cost (it’s a full-color book on special paper that comes with a CD), but most readers didn’t want to pay that much. We’ve since lowered the price, but the book had already lost steam.

Market analysis: Coco says that this book is right for:

A group of guy friends who formed a Black Sabbath tribute band that’s actually pretty good.
Dads with a sick sense of humor who love screen-printing and hanging out with their buds in the basement of the comic book shop on Saturday nights.

Is it true? Is this you or someone you know? Only time will tell.

An interview with Bob Suren

May 23, 2015 — by Elly

Bob Suren’s book, Crate Digger: An Obsession with Punk Records, comes out on June 8th, and advance copies have been immediately charming everyone in sight. The kickstarter-funded book captures the ups and downs of Bob’s life as a legend of Florida’s hardcore scene and a bellwether of the changing music industry.

Be sure to check out Bob’s youtube channel for priceless Florida hardcore moments of years past. You might also be able to catch him on tour this July if you live…well, just about anywhere in the southeastern, mid-atlantic, or central parts of the US. Best yet, he’s recording an audiobook of Crate Digger, and many bands discussed in the book have given permission to include their music.

1. Lore is that Crate Digger started as a series of Facebook posts. How did those eventually turn into a book?

A: One of my friends, Shane Hinton, who is 14 years younger than me but a gifted writer and college writing professor, told me that the stories were too good to just be Facebook posts. He told me I should turn it into a book but I didn’t think I had enough stories in me and I didn’t know how to organize it. Shane gave me the idea to organize it as a record collection, with the stories in alphabetical order according to the record titles that they go with. I thought that was clever. For a few months, I only wrote once or twice a week, 300 to 1,000 words at a time. Then The ideas started pouring in and I had to keep a list of everything I wanted to squeeze in. Then almost every day after work for a couple of months, I’d try to write a chapter and it came together really fast. Maybe three months of casual writing and then two or three months of hustling. I got exciting as I saw the ideas getting crossed off my list and the writing went faster. The last day I wrote, when I saw the end was in sight, I wrote nearly 8,000 words. That was Easter Sunday 2012.

Then came the hard part—trying to find a home for it. For about three or four months, I tried big publishing houses and agents. I did get some positive feedback but no offers. Then I gave up for about four months. Then a friend laid out all the text for me like a book, with graphics and formatted pages. That got me really excited and I started looking for a publisher again. For the second time around, I decided to go after indie publishers and made a short list of about ten. The publisher I really wanted ignored me, which I thought was rude. Then I skipped a few names down the list and tried Microcosm Publishing on my fourth or fifth day of the renewed search. Joe was into it right away. After just a few emails, maybe just 90 minutes times, I was looking at a contract. He had only read two sample chapters. I asked him if he wanted to read the whole book first and he said no. By the time I flew to Portland in Aug. 2014 for the final edit, Joe had only read about half the book. He read the second half for the first time with me right by his side. The editing process was fast and easy. I think we only lost about six pages from the original text, mostly redundancies. I was expecting to bang heads, but the editing process made for a stronger book.

2. The book is organized alphabetically—is that how you used to organize your record collection?

A: When I only had a handful of records, I kept them in the order I bought them, with new stuff up front and old stuff in back. Eventually, this method made it too hard to find what I wanted so I went to alphabetical. I used to keep all the unheard stuff in a small stack on my desk until it got cleaned and listened to once or twice before shelving. I once had a job at a public library. To get the job, they made me alphabetize a bunch of books and put a bunch of books in order by Dewey Decimal. I think it was 40 books in all, all scrambled. They said I had the fastest time ever. I think I did it in less than two minutes. They didn’t know about Sound Idea, the dustiest but most well-organized record store of all time. Even the T-shirts and stickers were alphabetized.

3. Fan response to your book has been tremendous—do you have any stories to share about how people are reacting?

A: Yes, I have been getting lots of emails from old friends and people I never met telling me that the book touched them, that they can relate to it. I just got a long email today from a guy I never met who had some of the same experiences. I think what makes a good book or a good song is that it is relatable. That’s why all those old blues songs still make people feel good, because the listener knows he’s not all alone. So, there are a lot of relatable stories and a lot of universal themes, what I like to call the Big Stuff. I wanted to put in a lot of the Big Stuff so that even people who don’t know the music can understand. My 70 year old co-worker told me that she didn’t know anything about punk but she went through all the Big Stuff, too. That’s exactly what I wanted to do.

And, of course, there are stories so bizarre that they could have only happened to me. Yesterday a guy asked me if the story about the FBI agent is true. Yes, every bit of this book is absolutely true. A lot of people from my past have found me on Facebook recently and ordered the book. That’s been kind of odd but cool.

4. You’ve been navigating the music industry as it’s gone through some massive changes. What do you think is the next big thing? Or, if different, what do you hope it will be?

A: I don’t really follow the industry anymore and I am kind of clueless. I never was good at gauging trends. I could never figure out why some bands were big and others weren’t. I just followed my heart and did things the way that felt right. Some of that was successful and some of it was not. I wish good luck to all the bands, labels, distributors and record shops out there. Vinyl is huge again. I didn’t see that coming. I have no idea how long that will last, but most of the people in music are my kind of people and I wish them well. I just don’t want to crunch numbers any more and play the public relations game. I barely even want to go to shows anymore. I go to shows to talk to my friends between bands. I don’t pay much attention to what is on stage, to tell you the truth. I’m not jaded, I am just more interested in other things. If you give me the choice between a three band punk show or bowling, I’ll take the bowling. It’s new ground for me. I’m no longer interested in treading water.

5. What’s the next big thing for you?

A: Oration is going to be part of my life, reading dates and freestyle talking. I have been playing around with the idea of stand up comedy, too. And I have been writing a lot of poetry which I bet already has people laughing but I don’t care. I am not writing it for them. I’m finding poetry a great way to express myself in short bursts with no limits. I’m also very excited about recording the audio book version of Crate Digger because that’s something I have never done. New territory excites me. Ask me if I want to make a quilt and I am going to say yes because I have no idea how to make a quilt. I want to get into voice over work and maybe acting if I can get a foot in the door. That’s a whole new world that I know nothing about and I may be terrible and I may hate it, but I sure want to try.

This has been an interview with Bob Suren, author of Crate Digger. It’s part of a series of interviews with Microcosm’s writers. The last one was with Why We Drive author Andy Singer. The next is with Consensuality author Helen Wildfell.